and of these things it had a rich store. Upon his death Miss Tyler became the sole survivor of her paternal race.

My memory strengthens as I proceed in this task of retrospection; and yet while some circumstances, a look, a sound, a gesture, though utterly unimportant, recur to me more vividly than the transactions of yesterday, others, which I would fain call to mind, are irrevocably gone. I have sometimes fancied, when dreaming upon what may be our future state, that in the next world we may recover a perfect recollection of all that has occurred to us in this, and in the prior stages of progressive existence, through which it is not improbable that our living principle has ascended. And yet the best and happiest of us must have something or other, altâ mente repostum, for which a draught of Lethe would be desired.

The pleasantest of my school years were those which I past at Williams's, especially after I took up my abode at Terril Street, for I then went home to dinner, and found much more satisfaction there in my own pursuits from twelve o'clock till two, than in his contracted play-ground. What I learnt there,

indeed, was worth little; it was just such a knowledge of Latin as a boy of quick parts and not without diligence will acquire under bad teaching. When I had gone through the Metamorphoses, Williams declared his intention of taking me from the usher and instructing me in Virgil himself, no other of his pupils having proceeded so far. But the old man, I suppose, discovered that the little classical knowledge which he ever possessed had passed away as irrevocably as his youth, and I continued under the usher's care, who kept me in the Eclogues so long, that I was heartily sick of them, and I believe have never looked in them from that time. Over and over again did that fellow make me read them; probably because he thought the book was to be gone through in order, and was afraid to expose himself in the Georgics. No attempt was made to ground me in prosody; and as this defect in my education was never remedied (for when I went to Westminster I was too forward in other things to be placed low enough in the school for regular training in this), I am at this day as liable to make a false quantity as any Scotchman. I was fond of arithmetic, and have no doubt that, at that time, I should have proceeded with pleasure through its higher branches, and might have been led on to mathematics, of which my mind afterwards became impatient, if not actually incapable.

Sometimes, when Williams was in good humour, he suspended the usual business of the school and exercised the boys in some uncommon manner. For example, he would bid them all take their slates, and write as he should dictate. This was to try their

spelling, and I remember he once began with this. sentence: "As I walked out to take the air, I met a man with red hair, who was heir to a good estate, and was carrying a hare in his hand." Another time he called upon all of a certain standing to write a letter, each upon any subject that he pleased. You will perhaps wonder to hear that no task ever perplexed me so woefully as this. I had never in my life written a letter, except a formal one at Corston before the holydays, every word of which was of the master's dictation, and which used to begin "Honoured Parents." Some of the boys produced compositions of this stamp; others, who were a little older and more ambitious, wrote in a tradesman-like style, soliciting orders, or acknowledging them, or sending in an account. For my part I actually cried for perplexity and vexation. Had I been a blockhead this would have provoked Williams; but he always looked upon me with a favourable eye, and, expressing surprise rather than anger, he endeavoured both to encourage and shame me to the attempt. To work I fell at last, and presently presented him with a description of Stonehenge, in the form of a letter, which completely filled the slate. I had laid hands not long before upon the Salisbury Guide, and Stonehenge had appeared to me one of the greatest wonders in the world. The old man was exceedingly surprised, and not less delighted, and I well remember how much his astonishment surprised me, and how much I was gratified by his praise. I was not conscious of having done anything odd or extraordinary, but the boys made me so; and to the sort of envy which it excited

among them, I was indebted for a wholesome mortification. One morning, upon entering the school a few minutes before the master made his appearance, some half-dozen of them beset me, and demanded whether I, with all my learning, could tell what the letters i. e. stood for. The question was proposed in the taunting tone of expected triumph, which I should well have liked to disappoint. But when I answered that I supposed it was for John the Evangelist, the unlucky guess taught me never again to be ashamed of acknowledging myself ignorant of what I really did not know. It was an useful lesson, especially as I was fortunate enough to perceive, early in life, that there were very many subjects of which I must of necessity be so.

Of all my schoolmasters Williams is the one whom I remember with the kindliest feelings. His Welsh blood was too easily roused; and his spirit was soured by the great decline of his school. His numbers in its best days had been from seventy to an hundred ; now they did not reach forty, when the times were dearer by all the difference which the American War had occasioned, and his terms could not be raised in proportion to the increased price of everything, because schools had multiplied. When his ill circumstances pressed upon him, he gave way, perhaps more readily, to impulses of anger; because anger, like drunkenness, suspends the sense of care, and an irascible emotion is felt as a relief from painful thoughts. His old wig, like a bank of morning clouds in the east, used to indicate a stormy day. At better times both the wig and the countenance would have beseemed a higher

station; and his anger was the more frightful, because at those better times there was an expression of good humour and animation in his features which was singularly pleasing, and I believe denoted his genuine character. He would strike with a ruler sometimes when his patience was greatly provoked by that incorrigible stupidity, which of all things perhaps puts patience to the severest trial. There was a hulking fellow (a Creole with Negro features and a shade of African colour in him), who possessed this stupidity in the highest degree; and Williams, after flogging him one day, made him pay a halfpenny for the use of the rod, because he required it so much oftener than any other boy in the school. Whether Gwas most sensible of the mulct or the mockery, I know not, but he felt it as the severest part of the punishment. This was certainly a tyrannical act; but it was the only one of which I ever saw Williams guilty.

There were a good many Creoles at this school, as indeed at all the Bristol schools. Cassava bread was among the things which were frequently sent over to them by their parents, so that I well knew the taste of Mandioc long before I heard its name, These Creoles were neither better nor worse than so many other boys in any respect. Indeed, though they had a stronger national cast of countenance, they were, I think, less marked by any national features of mind or disposition than the Welsh, certainly much less than the Irish. One of them (evidently by his name of French extraction) was however the most thoroughly fiendish human being that I have ever known. There